I'm in Vegas too. I also noticed that I don't get 725. The only other channel I have had a problem with is 340 G4TV. I was going to call Cox, but thought I'd check here first. Good to hear that it's not an issue with the Tivo. Let me know if you don't get 340 as well. I'm hoping it is the same issue.

I don't get 340 either. But that is part of the "Variety Programming Tier" and it may be a premium service I don't subscribe to. I checked and 725 is a "free" channel.

I called Cox Rhode Island this morning. Basically they said that, yes, they provide CableCard service here in Rhode Island, but that it is very new and does not support On Demand and Pay-per-View. They also stated that they would not support the Tivo 3 either at installation time or after installation. The only device they will install a CableCard into is a CableCard-ready TV.

So then I asked about costs. Basically if you want HD DVR you pay 10 bucks a month for the box rental and 5 bucks a month for the service - so 15 a month per box. We pay 5 a month per box currently with D*.

Looks like I'll hold pat with D* for a bit...

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endlessly (and mindlessly) in pursuant of clarity and precision

I called Cox Rhode Island this morning. Basically they said that, yes, they provide CableCard service here in Rhode Island, but that it is very new and does not support On Demand and Pay-per-View. They also stated that they would not support the Tivo 3 either at installation time or after installation. The only device they will install a CableCard into is a CableCard-ready TV.

They can say that all that want, but the FCC has mandated that the cable companies must install cable cards in any CableLab certified device, and the TiVo Series 3 is CableLab certified. If Cox RI won't do that, you can complain to the franchise authority and the FCC.

They are right to say they won't "support" the TiVo. If you have a problem with your TiVo that isn't related to the cablecard authentication then you call TiVo about that.

I had a Cox tech come out this week to install 2 cable cards in my S3. Make sure when you call in for the appointment you tell them you need 2 cards, she kept trying to tell me I only needed one. Also make sure that you tell the tech this also when he calls to confirm the appointment.

The tech arrived and we started with card #1. I installed and pulled up the paring screen so he could call in the numbers. He gave the numbers to office and they came back with a "failed" message. So we tried a few more times to no avail. We then tried the second card in the same slot, same problem. An hour has elapsed at this point. He had another tech come by for assistance. They check my signal level and fitting and could find no problems.

I then suggested that we try the card in the TV itself. Same problem. Now I get a higher level tech to come out. We did the whole thing over again, same problem, "failed". I then ask him, these are one-way cards right? He knew where I was going, the office was not going to get a response back. So we checked to see if I was getting any channels, I was!! We did the other card, success!! The man at the office was still frustrated and said they should not be working.

It's been 3 days now and all is well!!! I should go on to say that between the 3 techs I had, they had only installed about 12 cards this year so they are very proficient at them (they admitted this) but they stayed with it.

I'll also point out I was the first one here to have one. Hopefully the next guy that gets one will have an easy time.

I'll also point out I was the first one here to have one. Hopefully the next guy that gets one will have an easy time.

I'll be getting mine installed shortly in Roanoke, so hopefully I WILL have an easy time.

The Cox Sales person I talked to on the phone was giving me all this jive to discourage me from getting Cablecards. One of the things she was telling me was that every time they make a change to their channel lineup (ie, add ESPN2 in HD or somesuch) that someone would have to come out and manually reconfigure the cablecards in my house, thus incurring another service charge. This has to be a lie, right?

My install is happening tomorrow. Question --- are they charging you the $6 "digital gateway" charge on EACH of your 2 Cablecards? They are for me. If not, what'd you say / do to get them to only charge you once (or not at all)?

My install is happening tomorrow. Question --- are they charging you the $6 "digital gateway" charge on EACH of your 2 Cablecards? They are for me. If not, what'd you say / do to get them to only charge you once (or not at all)?

On my 1st bill they did that.

On my current bill they did it different. It says 2x digital gateway for $7 2x Cablecards for $4. Thsi is more in-line with the original quote when I ordered service. I'm just happy it's better than the $20 or so I paid on the 1st bill.

First encounter, a contractor with a heavy accent spent two hours with me mostly yelling at his boss in Spanish on his cell. He walked out of the job and I just asked him to leave the cards. I called Cox and got the cards to work

My second encounter was when they added ESPN2HD and NFlHD. ESPN2 HD was fine, but NFLHD was a black screen. I called, they hit the box, but they were told to stop after a few hits in increasing intensity because they felt it might damage the TiVo which they said they did not own. Sent their guy in who was not a contractor. He was at least trainable. He call Connecticut, I’m in Rhode Island, talked to few people and found one who was familiar with CC and fixed the problem. The installer thanked me for basically training him on the TiVo and said he would give two free promotions for the favor and to look for it in a few minutes. He gave me all the HBO and Starz channels.

This brings me to my third encounter. I only received HBO Starz channels on one tuner. I called went through the same first steps in encounter two and they sent another installer out. This guy was also trainable for the first hour and then grew increasingly frustrated. He had Connecticut Cox on one phone and Rhode Island Cox on another phone both working on the same problem, but neglected to make clear of others existence. So Rhode Island Cox is thinking this while Connecticut is thinking that and both are trying to initialize cards at the same time.

A few things started to dawn on me. Why am I taking all this time training Cox’s employees? If I had all this time why would I need to spend $800 for a TiVo! I would watch live right?

So I made an excuse that I had to be somewhere and thanked him for his patience as I showed him the door. I then called Cox and said no thanks to their free HBO and Starz and told her I didn’t have the time to start a second career as their trainer or wouldn’t have gotten a Tivo to mange time and would just stick with their crappy box of low storage capacity. She didn’t have a clue to what I was talking about but remove the channels.

Did you do anything between the first and 2nd bill to get it switched, or was it just switched on its own? I never received a quote for one price for 2 cards ... everyone I talked to insisted I needed to pay the gateway fee for each card, even though many people on this forum have claimed otherwise.

Did you do anything between the first and 2nd bill to get it switched, or was it just switched on its own? I never received a quote for one price for 2 cards ... everyone I talked to insisted I needed to pay the gateway fee for each card, even though many people on this forum have claimed otherwise.

Yes, Cox Las Vegas is charging two "digital gateway fees", one for each of the CableCards

I am in the process of

1) Confirming that Cox Las Vegas does not charge two "digital gateway fees" for their rented HD DVR - Confirmed

2) Confirming that they are charging me two DGFs for my Series 3 TiVo - already knew that

3) Fifteen minutes on hold, rep returned to let me know that my bill was much less because I wasn't having to rent a cablebox and that the DGF is required for the CableCards

4) Explained AGAIN to her that the TiVo Series 3 is doing the exact same thing as their HD DVR (only better) and if they are not charging two DGFs for it, then they are creating an anti-competetive marketplace.

5) Waiting to speak to a supervisor - He wasn't there, but I was given his direct contact information.

6) Writing letter to Steve Schorr, explaining the ignorance of the CableCard installer, their anti-competetive pricing structure, how Comcast is dealing with it (Series 3 Digital Service) and detailing further action that will be taken if the situation isn't corrected. - pending

Yes, Cox Las Vegas is charging two "digital gateway fees", one for each of the CableCards

I am in the process of

1) Confirming that Cox Las Vegas does not charge two "digital gateway fees" for their rented HD DVR - Confirmed

2) Confirming that they are charging me two DGFs for my Series 3 TiVo - already knew that

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I just got my first bill since installing two cable cards in my S3 Tivo. Cox Las Vegas charged $30 per card for the install, and is charging $2.06 per card per month. They are also charging $5.12 for the Digital Service/Digital Gateway. So my cable cards are costing a total of $9.24 per month. I was paying $10.59 per month for the SA 8300 HD cable box and $10.32 per month for the Digital Video Recorder Service. My monthly billing has been reduced by $11.67 per month.

You would think they would charge only 1 fee for the digital gateway. The point of entry to your home from the cable. I am in Phoenix and am considering the S3 I currently just have basic cable and high speed internet. I am also Jacked about the 5.00 more a month I am paying for internet because they say its now 7mb download. Hell I never got 6mb throughput usually around 4 or 5mbs.

ShawnGt besides the free Local HDTV what other channels do you get that are not premium HD?

I remember when cox wanted to charge for each additional computer on my internet and that didn't go over well as most people have home networked on thier own.

I was very happy to see my cable bill decreased $10/month after returning the Cox DVR. The CableCard charges for Cox Orange County, CA are pretty reasonable IMO:
Cablecards: 2*$1.99 = $3.98
1 additional outlet fee of $1.49
=> $5.47/month for 2 CableCards for the S3. Since I got the 3 year prepaid service for $300 I'm paying the equivalent of $8.33/month for Tivo service so total for S3 is: $13.80/month

This compared to $15/month previously for Cox for Motorola DVR box rental + DVR service fee. So of course other than the up front cost of $800 or so for the S3 I don't feel like I'm getting totally ripped off for a definite upgrade to a decent DVR that I can add more storage space to and also record OTA.

First I was told the issue was a cablecard issue and that I needed a software update. Next I was told that new cards would have to be issued and installed. After spending three weeks dealing with tech support, and enduring three on-site visits, I have been told that Cox does not "map" channel 725 (MTV HD) to CableCards and has no intent to do so in the future.

Is anyone getting MTV-HD? Can Cox selectively choose which channels are provided to CableCard customers? I have to believe they are running affoul of FCC rules by doing so.

First I was told the issue was a cablecard issue and that I needed a software update. Next I was told that new cards would have to be issued and installed. After spending three weeks dealing with tech support, and enduring three on-site visits, I have been told that Cox does not "map" channel 725 (MTV HD) to CableCards and has no intent to do so in the future.

Is anyone getting MTV-HD? Can Cox selectively choose which channels are provided to CableCard customers? I have to believe they are running affoul of FCC rules by doing so.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated...

I was told by the Cox second level technician that no one in Vegas with Cable Cards is getting 725. I certainly am not.

You would think they would charge only 1 fee for the digital gateway. The point of entry to your home from the cable. I am in Phoenix and am considering the S3 I currently just have basic cable and high speed internet. I am also Jacked about the 5.00 more a month I am paying for internet because they say its now 7mb download. Hell I never got 6mb throughput usually around 4 or 5mbs.

ShawnGt besides the free Local HDTV what other channels do you get that are not premium HD?

I remember when cox wanted to charge for each additional computer on my internet and that didn't go over well as most people have home networked on thier own.

The caveot to all this... When I was first installed, all I got was the nets and a spuratic mix of the digital channels. The supervisor stopped by and yelled at the home office to 'get this guy the HD channels he's paying for'. They had to open a new ticket to authorize the HD Channels (I'm guessing the HD Expanded tier on my bill).

If you read their site it says all the non-premium HD channels are included with ANY digital cable subscription .

I called today and was asking about cox service and was told I` could not get the HD locals without the HD service. I was really considering the whole package with everything was 74.00 a `month for 1 hd box and 1 cablecard with digital and all the tiers except the latino. Just alot of money thinking about directtv as they offer more hd channels.

I called today and was asking about cox service and was told I` could not get the HD locals without the HD service. I was really considering the whole package with everything was 74.00 a `month for 1 hd box and 1 cablecard with digital and all the tiers except the latino. Just alot of money thinking about directtv as they offer more hd channels.

Roanoke install went very smoothly. The guy followed the Tivo instructions to the letter, and when we got an error that Tivo's website said to ignore, he had no problem ignoring it.

I watched some basketball on ESPN HD last night, and left the TV on Discovery HD all night long (still breaking in my Panasonic plasma). This morning, I switch from Discovery (still on) to a non-HD station, and when I try to switch back to Discovery (channel 702), I get nothing. 703 (ESPN HD, which I'd been watching the night before) is also gone. On both cards. All other HD channels (704 and up) are fine. I'm going to reset the Tivo and connect to the service before I make a call to Cox (the guy who installed my cablecards said that ESPN2HD was rolling out in Roanoke today ... I don't know if he was talking crap or what, but maybe some channels moved around).

On ALL my digital channels, I'm getting 100% signal strength according to Tivo, so I'm not sure what the story is there. Hopefully, I can get this resolved during my lunchbreak.

I have been told that Cox does not "map" channel 725 (MTV HD) to CableCards and has no intent to do so in the future.

Is anyone getting MTV-HD? Can Cox selectively choose which channels are provided to CableCard customers? I have to believe they are running affoul of FCC rules by doing so.

It certainly seems to violate the spirit of the integration ban. Cox Las Vegas is providing something to their set top box renters that they can't or won't supply to cable card renters. If Cox is holding firm on this I'd go ahead and complain to the franchising authority and the FCC.

Had Cox install my two cable cards last night and they're working great. He had one bad card, but luckily he had an extra that he brought just in case. All my channels seem to be working well, though Tivo doesn't know about a few of them. I filed a report with Tivo for ESPN2HD. I think the NFL HD channel is on another channel, but the cox website only says that channel is a COXHD channel. The installer said that they're going to make it permanent at the beginning of the year. I figured I would wait to see if Tivo adds it then once it's officially a permanent channel.

After just having basic cable and an antenna for the last month, having cable cards installed is really nice. It's like getting a new tivo!

I filed a report with Tivo for ESPN2HD. I think the NFL HD channel is on another channel, but the cox website only says that channel is a COXHD channel. T

Looks like on the Roanoke side, ESPN2 has been added, and Discovery, TNT, and ESPN1 have all been moved. I was able to manually tune them, although (even after a service update) Tivo's guide data hasn't caught up. This explains why two of my channels disappeared this morning.